


Venter

by Catspaw_Press



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-05-05 14:34:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5378672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catspaw_Press/pseuds/Catspaw_Press
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The man’s eyes were the color of melting snow, his voice sounded like nightfall and heat still dissipating from sun warmed wood.</p><p>Angel AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She could pin her downfall on a single word. It popped into her mind from out of nowhere one day. The three simple letters felt wonderful on her tongue as she whispered them to herself at night, wondering what the stars were made out of.

Why?

With that question Molly began to see complexity in the human creatures that passed through her forest. Her curiosity blanketed her, creating a wonderous haven that insulated her against the petty squabbling between her father and brothers. She passed her time with creation, experimenting with the plants and herbs in her forest.  

One day a man wandered through, gathering mushrooms and praying that his little son’s fever might break. Scraping off a piece of willow bark, Molly filled his basket with the beginnings of a powerful tea.

A wounded huntsman stumbled incoherent, looking to feed his family one last time before the wound festering on his shoulder took his life. On the patch of ground where he died, Molly laid one hundred honeysuckle flowers and a dense patch of wild garlic.

A women prayed for a miracle, wishing for god to take her child or to somehow stop her father from killing them both when her belly started to show. And so Molly planted rue with the young woman's tears.

Slowly, as the forest grew fecund with the weight of her creations, humans began to gather and inhabit the glade in her forest.

In the beginning the humans had called her Faerie and Elf. As later generations came to know her, she was transformed into a nymph and later to an angel. They called her Magdelena after the mother of a beloved profit, and lit candles so that she might continue to nurture their village.

One night a child of no special distinction was born in the village. His birth was unattended and not a single person stood hushed with wonder over his cradle. The poor child’s mother was only 14 and had been abandoned by all that purported to love her before the boy had even quickened in her womb. First by the man who had planted him there, then by the entire village once it was discovered what she’d done. Molly alone stood in the room as this latest life was ushered into the world.

She watched as the new mother fed and wrapped the babe finally settling him into the cradle by her bed, the skin around the girl’s eyes becoming a deeper blue as the minutes ticked into hours. By the time little Sherlock woke again, the girl had passed, the soul that warmed her carcass drifting away on the wind.  Molly looked into the cradle as the child stirred to waking. His eyes met hers before scrunching into irritated displeasure. Molly stepped back startled, his eyes were the perfect grey of a clear stream rushing over round stones. His mother’s last words still lingered in the air, sticking to the skin at Molly’s wrists. “Please God, let someone love him.” Molly didn’t understand love, it eluded her with same grace as a leaf on the wind. Whatever she was, elf, angle, nymph, she had not been designed with the capacity to love. The closest thing she felt to that emotion was curiosity, the joy of solving a puzzle.

This child puzzled her.

As she walked away from the sharp sound of Sherlock’s cries, Molly remembered a woman whose own newborn son had grown ill, a weakness in his heart that no herb or flower could fix. It was simple to exchange them. Sherlock would grow healthy and strong as William Holmes and the sick child’s soul would be released that much sooner--free of pain and flying on the breeze.

She didn’t see the child again for many years.

The village was buzzing with some latest intrigue. Molly moved through the crowd pulling together snippets of conversation.

“She always was such a wild girl…”

“There’s a fair in Bellshill, she’ll be back by weeks end.”

“Just like the little tramp to scarper off when there’s work to be done.”

She found herself at Sherlock’s side, the crystal starkness of his infant's eyes faded into the softness of old snow. She bent close, letting her lips brush the shell of his ear as she whispered the word that plagued her.

“Why,” She asked, “would the mason’s daughter run away with no provisions for food or shelter.” Alieah wasn’t bright, but she was a mostly sensible girl. She hadn’t taken an apple or her favorite dress. She watched her question transform the young boy’s face, sloughing off the remaining roundness of youth and sharpening with promise of the man he might become.

“Why, indeed.” He whispered back face rotating towards hers, though he could not see or sense her.

From that day on, she whispered to him all time, questions she had no means to ask for herself.

Why was Thaddeus town leader? Why would his son ascend to take his place? Gilroy was more patient and logical, was it not the natural order that the strongest, best suited should lead?

She should have known. As questions shifted into answers, Sherlock’s curiosity turned to bigger things, surpassing the confines of the tiny town and Molly’s forest. One day, after a particularly vicious crime Sherlock had been called on to solve, he decided there was no such thing as God.

Molly had spent so long cloistered in her small woods that she’d forgotten the war her father and brothers fought over the souls of humans. That night she heard a voice she hadn’t heard a millennium rolling roughly over her shoulder blades and neck.

“You have betrayed me, Daughter.”

“How, Father? I have cared for this forest as you asked me too?”

In answer Sherlock’s face flashed in the lightening of the growing storm. Everything that passed after was blur of light and pain. She felt the claws of a thousand beasts ripping out her divinity.

She woke hours later assaulted by a host of sensations she’d never experienced before. Chill and hunger, the grit of dirt beneath her nails, all overlaid with pain. Molly found herself sunk into the muddy earth on her stomach, the blood streaked scraps of the gauzy dressed she’d been wearing was plastered wetly against her skin. She was trapped beneath the debris of a fallen tree, her leg surely broken where is disappeared into the trunk.

The next days were a series of flashes, like the lightening that contained Sherlocks face. A face Molly didn’t recognize asking if she was alive. The shouts of men as they hauled the tree off her. A warm damp cloth traced the curve of her calves and knees, scissors snipping in the background. Unbelievable pain as her broken leg was set and dressed.

In the midst of all this, a voice pierced the haze of pain. “Miss, can you tell me your name?” Molly opened her eyes. The man’s eyes were the color of melting snow, his voice sounded like nightfall and heat still dissipating from sun warmed wood.

“Molly,” she forced out of her parched throat.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherever she had come from, William supposed she was his problem now.

William could remember the first time he’d felt the  _ other _ inside him. Watching his mother and father converse easily around the table, trading the most interesting pieces of their day, it seemed as though he were watching the exchange through plated glass, the warmth of their devotion never quite reaching him. They loved him and he supposed, in his own way, he loved them as well. But he had never once felt that connection that seemed to come so easily to everyone else in the village. If he concentrated he could see the thin supple strands of his father’s soul reaching toward his mother connecting them to each other and everyone else in town.

By contrast, the few connections William had been able to make were weak brittle things that dissolved at the slightest shaking. For a long time, William believed he was incapable of such feelings. One day, as he was preoccupied with his study of clover-- following the patches deeper and deeper into the forest-- he found a red shaggy dog weak with hunger and wounded beneath a dense pine. The dog had wandered into an ancient rusted trap. The smell of blood and honeysuckle assailed William as he stalked closer to the animal. He examined the trap, ignoring the setters weak snarls as he found the trigger’s release. And that was it, for the first time William saw a strand from his own soul attach to another’s, flexible and strong as willow branch.

He dragged the dog back to the village on a sleigh made of pine branches, all the way to Viola Watson’s door. 

“What’s this then?” the healer asked as she examined the boy and dog. 

“I found him the woods, caught in a trap.” William answered without meeting her eyes. Williams eyes made people uncomfortable, he learned a long time ago to look away when people spoke to him.

The healer’s eyes softened as she observed the strange boy, noticing the way his hand stroked the dog’s neck and the protective edge in his voice.  

“John,” She called to a small blond boy in the back. “Help me get this beast inside.”

After that, everything was different. William was still decidedly  _ other _ , but with Redbeard by his side it plagued him less. The niggling unease of not belonging subsumed in the friendship he found with the setter.

Until the day Alieah went missing. William had always been good at seeing things other people didn’t bother to notice. His mind caught on details like barbed wire catching the skin beneath his sleeve. Alieah was a silly, shallow girl, but she wasn’t stupid. Why would she leave her dress if she was sneaking to the festival? Why wouldn’t she bring any food with her if she was running away? The tiny details formed themselves into a story.

A bored, fanciful girl dreaming uselessly of heros on white horses. A father, who's back had become twisted and weak after endless days of carving and laying stone. A marriage arranged and protested, so that a beautiful daughter may never know hunger. Three words whispered from behind a locked door. Pain and anger fusing into a blinding storm. Strong hands on weak arms.

A fresh patch of earth, newly planted with lilies and white roses.

Sherlock asked the constable to dig up the garden. The entire town gathered to watch Lestrade arrest the mason when Alieah’s wrapped body was extracted from the ground.

That’s when everyone else noticed the  _ other  _ in him. It started slow, people subtly shifting out of his path on the street, mother’s flashing crossed fingers when he walked past their children. Gradually their fear became more overt, leaving him out of town functions, asking his parents to take him out of school. William’s parents refused at first, only budging when he asked them to apprentice him at the parish governance to train as constable. They agreed, hiding their relief in sad smiles.

When his was old enough, William built a small one room house in the woods outside of town, the pull of their mystery enfolding him--the closest thing to a home he had ever known. And so the days passed, living between the village and forest, a dark spector chasing jealousy and death with only the soft touches of the breeze and a ragged setter to keep his company.

Until the storm. He remembered being pulled out of a nightmare shouting, Redbeard’s tongue laving his cheek. A woman was being ripped apart by animals, screaming his name over and over, and no matter how fast or far he ran he could never reach her. He recognized her voice, his brain no doubt compiling the girls in the village into one sound. He put his hand on Redbeards head where it rested on his chest. Just an awful dream.

The next morning his front lawn was polluted with a sea of visitors, running back and forth between the forest and town with chains and saws. He caught the arm of a man that ran past. 

“You, what’s going on?” William asked as he searched his memory for a name, gaze flickering over the man light hair and blue eyes. John, the healer’s son.

“A young woman was caught up in the storm, a tree collapsed on her. Now if you don’t mind, I have a patient to see too.” With that John wrenched his arm away from William’s grasp.

William followed the healer into the dense wood. He came upon the crowd as the last section of the pine trunk was lifted off the woman. There was something odd about her that he couldn’t quite place. Between the deep gashes criss-crossing her back, the girl hard perfect clear skin that seemed made of moonlight and shown even under the layers of blood and grime.Her delicate features, twisted with pain, made it impossible to place her age. 

John did a quick examination of the patient, seeming to determine that all was not quite as bad as it seemed. “Someone help me lift her.” 

The townspeople eyed her warily, struck by her strangeness as well. William stepped forward.

“How should I…” He trailed off, healing distinctly not his area.

“He back seems fine. Put your hand under her shoulders and knees. Mind her leg, it’s very badly broken.” John instructed firm but patient, grabbing William’s elbows to form a sort of human basket. 

They carried her slowly back to John’s surgery, settling her carefully on the long wide table that served as an examination bench. John immediately set to work, grabbing a pair of scissors from a nearby draw.

“Mary!” He called to his wife. A round blonde haired woman appeared from the house, her steps slow under the weight of a seven month old pregnant belly. “I need you to wash away this mess so we know what we’re dealing with.” John’s eyes caught on the town constable hovering awkwardly by the window. He met the man’s strange eyes,”Fetch the water from the well. Mary, start a fire to get it boiling.” William jumped into action, relieved to have a task.

William remained close at hand, performing the tasks John’s heavily pregnant wife could no longer handle on her own. Once the woman’s leg was set and bound, and the gashes on her back and arms dressed, William set about his official business. Who was this woman and what had she been doing so deep in the forest? It was a miracle anyone had found her at all.

Clean and resting, William could see that she was the sort of second glance beautiful that seemed to grow more pronounced the more often you looked. Her hands and feet were soft and free of calluses, not any kind of laborer then. In fact everything about her looked brand new, her soul the clear white of a newborn. 

Her face pinched and she groaned slightly, stirring awake.

“Miss, can you tell me your name?” William asked gently, seizing the opportunity. The young woman’s eyes opened slowly, a whisper sneaking past her throat. 

“Molly.” She replied before falling into unconsciousness again.

“Molly.” William tested the unfamiliar name of his tongue. There were no ‘Molly’s’ in Wellhollow or Bellshill, where had she come from? Wherever she had come from, William supposed she was his problem now. 


	3. Chapter 3

Molly woke again the next day after mid-day. The sun streaking through the crease in her eyes, making a criss-cross pattern on the quilt she’d been wrapped in--soft and worn with age. Something lingered just on the edge of her memory, like a ship drifting past the ocean’s horizon. This place was familiar, but she couldn’t remember why or when she’d ever stepped foot in the surgery before. 

The pain in her leg and back had dulled, no longer seizing all of her attention. She took in the details of her surroundings, the wood paneling on the wall was warm from the sun, the room smelled pleasantly of cedar and dust. The floorboards in the ceiling creaked as someone walked across the floor upstairs, the light clattering of pots and pans slipped through the wall at Molly’s back. Everytime she released a breathe, the dust motes in the air danced and shimmered in the golden afternoon sunlight. 

A word floated to the top of her mind, Home. The denotation deeply carved with 1000 years of repetition, but the conation touching her for only the first time.

A prettily pregnant blonde woman walked into Molly’s field of vision, holding the handles of a battered tin tray in both hands, the bottom balanced on her belly.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. How are you feeling this afternoon? Hungry yet?” As soon as she said the word, Molly identified the gnawing discomfort she’d felt in her stomach.  _ Yes, of course. Hunger.  _ Molly thought,confused at how she could have possibly forgotten the sensation.

“Yes, thank you.” Molly replied, trying to maneuver herself into a seated position. Her leg twinged painfully, taking Molly by surprise. The woman set down the tray on a “C” shaped table. “Let me help you, dear.” Once Molly was settled, the the nurse pulled up the table and began checking some of the laceration on Molly’s back and arms. 

“William said your name was Molly?” Molly looked up confused.  _ William? _

“Yes, that’s right. Molly. But I-I don’t-” Molly broke off, deciding it wasn’t important. “This is wonderful, thank you--” Molly said indicating the broth that had been brought to her. 

“Mary Watson, John’s wife.” she replied. “John’s the physician here in Wellhollow. But you never answered my question. How are you feeling, Molly?”

Molly thought carefully, evaluating each piece of her body. The trouble was, she couldn’t remember how her body was supposed to feel. There was pain yes, but it was considerably less that yesterday. “Better.” Molly settled on.

Molly could feel Mary’s eyes on her, watching as she lapped up the broth. Molly couldn’t recall tasting anything so wonderful in her life.

“He’ll be coming by this evening,” Mary continued, “Ask you some questions, see if we can’t get you back to your family.”

The word struck Molly strangely, like a sharp twist in the muscle behind her lungs leaving behind an impression of shallowness. Family. Molly turned the word over in her mind, trying to remember what it meant. Like Home, she knew on the surface what it meant, but-for reasons she couldn’t remember- the three syllables filled her with a tightness that bordered on pain, echoing in the slices on her back.

“I don’t think I have one.” said Molly solemnly, lifting her face to Mary, spoon resting just above the rim of her empty bowl. “At least not anymore.” The door behind Mary opened, popping the bubble of intimacy between patient and nurse. The spoon Molly had be holding clattered into her bowl.

“Good morrow, Mary.” The dark haired man said as he walked deeper into the room. Molly recognized the man’s voice and cold grey eyes. 

“Always a pleasure, William. But you’re early, I wasn’t expecting you until this evening.” William. The name didn’t sit right with Molly, but she didn’t know why. She probed the black spots in her mind searching for an answer as Mary and William conversed in the background. Nothing. A voice shook her from her revery. 

Molly’s eyes focused, shifting to meet the speakers. “What?”

William smirked, “I asked if you had anyone we should contact, let them know you’re alright. Who ever you were traveling to meet.”

“I wasn’t traveling.” Molly said simply, maintaining steady eye contact. 

“Do you and your kin live in the forest?” He asked confused. That didn’t feel right either. Molly closed her eyes, pushing at the black spots. She knew the forest, could remember every toadstool and secluded grove, but she got the feeling that she had never truly “lived” anywhere.

“I-No, I don’t think so.” She replied, eyes still closed.

“You don’t remember?” 

Molly blinked, looking directly at the man questioning her. “I don’t remember anything except the storm.” 

William paused taking in every detail of her aspect. The muscles in Molly’s back involuntarily quaked under the intensity of his stare.  _ Shiver,  _ the blank spaces whispered. The man blinked, breaking the spell, his face curling into a delighted grin. 

“Then this case just became a lot more interesting.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It seems that flying is not your destiny, Mr Holmes.”

Molly stood poised on tip-toe three feet above the damp beach of a turbulent sea, feeling the wind push against her body and outstretched arms. The sound of whipping cloth sung around her in symphony with the crashing waves of salt water and the rustle of seagrass. In the distance, the branches of oaks where the forest gave way to sandy prairie creaked an uneven legato rhythm. Molly leaned further into the wind, the grey rock ledge beneath her cutting into the balls of her feet through thin second hand slippers--a bright high note in the background. 

It was a song she had heard before, the verses and stanzas flitting in and around the blank spaces in her memory. She remembered it in the same way she remembered how to find and prepare feverfew. The knowledge was there as if it had been carved on her bones from the first moment of her existence. She could not remember a kind old face showing her the proper way to boil and grind the herb. No family recipe book, the collected knowledge of one hundred different souls, read by candle light. Just a certainty that she had done this before.

“What are you doing?” Molly opened one eye, looking for the voice that hit her skin like the first raindrops of a storm. 

“Trying to remember how to fly. Care to join me, Constable?” Molly asked smiling, closing her eyes again. The air around her shifted as William took his place beside her. She felt his hand brush her sleeve as he raised his arms. The melody changed as something hummed between them--the rich, low vibration of a tight cord.

The wind picked up and waves crashed violently against the shore. Their eyes met as William pitched forward, balance lost in the sudden strength of the wind. Molly caught a fistfull of his sleeve in the same moment his large hand found purchase on her shoulder, halting his fall. 

“It seems that flying is not your destiny, Mr Holmes.” She teased as they backed away from the short cliff, releasing his now crumpled sleeve.

“I’ll have to rely on you for all my flying needs then.” He replied. “In any case, Angelica sent me to collect you. There’s supposed to be a storm.”

Together they packed away Molly’s small tent and supplies, carefully wrapping and storing the medicinal herbs she’d been sent to collect in exchange for room and board in the small attic room above the shop of Wellhollow’s apothecary. Molly packed up the meager collection of belongings she’d accumulated while living with the Watsons--an old dress of Mary’s, the worn quilt from her sickbed, and the pot and spoon William had given her when she’d moved into the shop--rolling them into a bundle and attaching them to the large wicker backpack Angelica and Bryon Humbles had provided for the herbs. 

William pulled the basket’s black leather strap over his shoulder, walking back toward the forest where he’s left his horse to graze. Molly watched as he attached the bundle to the black’s saddle. 

“I don’t suppose you remember how to ride?” He asked the buckle the pack. Molly shook her head, forcing him to look up from his task to see her response. 

William walked around to help Molly into the saddle, dodging the horse’s flicking tail. Placing a hand at Molly’s waist, he took her hand and supported her as she climbed onto the animal’s powerful back.

“Why do you do that?” Molly asked gripping William’s hand tighter as he tried to pull away. He looked up at her confused, “Do what?”

“Look everywhere but my face when I talk to you.” she replied. William met her steady gaze, the glimmer of a challenge bouncing between them, agitating the cord that hummed between them. They stayed like that-- still and locked in silent conversation-- for several long seconds until the wind blew a long strand of black hair into William’s face. Molly leaned down to brush it back from her place on the horse. Spell broken, William pulled away and quickly mounted. 

“Well--We need to leave, if we’re going make it back to Wellhollow before the weather hits.” He pulled Molly’s arms around his waist. “Hold on tight.” The first rumbles of thunder sounded in the distant sea as they took off into the forest, sending an icy wind that slide down Molly’s neck and planted itself between her shoulder blades. 

“Perhaps it’s already too late.” She whispered into the wool of William’s coat.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate Title: Am I dead? Because you look like heaven
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=a-w9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA455&lpg=PA455&dq=things+that+the+wind+or+tide+drive+in+from+the+ocean+to+the+shore+venter&source=bl&ots=pnDMQUQpAY&sig=Nd3LP6ousjVxxx3suQXpHPqcXnE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0AEaVMeoJcORgwThw4GQAg#v=onepage&q=things%20that%20the%20wind%20or%20tide%20drive%20in%20from%20the%20ocean%20to%20the%20shore%20venter&f=false


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